whole lot of Withrow and not let
on, Joe?"

I tried to look at Maurice like my oldest brother used to look at me
sometimes when he tried to make me feel that I was a very green kid
indeed, and said, "Well, if she's the kind to care for a man like
Withrow, all I've got to say is that she'll deserve all she'll get.
He's no good."

"That may be, but how's she to know? I know, you know, and half the
men in Gloucester know that he's rotten; but take a woman who only
sees him at his best and when he's watching out--how's she to know?"

"I don't know, but being a woman she ought to," was all I could say to
that. It came into my mind just then that when I next saw my cousin
Nell I'd tell her what I really knew, and more than that--what I
really thought of my old employer. Perhaps she'd carry it to Miss
Foster. If it was to be Maurice or Withrow, I knew on which side I was
going to be.

Both of us were quiet then, neither of us quite knowing what to say
perhaps. Then together we started to walk to the corner of the side
street. We were past the side-door of the boarding-house when a voice
called out, "Oh, Maurice," and then, maybe noticing me, I suppose,
"Oh, Captain Blake," and Maurice turned. Minnie Arkell--Mrs. Miner
rather--was there at the kitchen window. I didn't know she was in town
at all--thought she hadn't got back from Florida, or North Carolina,
or wherever it was she had been for the winter.

"Won't you come in a minute, Captain, and your friend? He doesn't
remember me--do you, Joe?--and yet we were playmates once," which was
true. I was often taken to Mrs. Arkell's when a little fellow by
skippers who were friends of my father's. They used to tell me about
him, and I liked to listen.

"I thought I'd run over and see granny," she went on. "I'm back to the
old house for a while. Won't you come in?"

My mind had long been set against Minnie Arkell. I knew about her
throwing over a fine young fellow, a promising skipper, to marry
Miner. I may have been too young at the time to judge anybody, but
after that I had small use for her. My ideas in the matter were of
course pretty much what older men had put into me.

I had listened to them--skippers and others--and yet now, when she
held out her hand to me and smiled, I didn't feel nearly so set
against her. She certainly was a handsome girl, and yet I hoped that
Maurice wouldn't fall in love with her, as most everybody did that
came to the Arkell house.

I sa